Wasteland
by Nanen
Summary: after the "third comming of christ" and the world is let as an ashin cinder, Itachi takes in an orphen origional character and raises her as an apprentice.
1. Chapter 1: Daybreak

Wasteland :

Chapter 001: Daybreak

"Whats that you've got there, Itachi?" The blue skinned, shark man, named Kisame, inquired glancing at the large bulge under his partners cloak.

"Its my new apprentice..." Itachi replied, revealing the face of an unconscious young girl. "I'll be training her from now on."

"Like we don't have enough problems right now..." Kisame complained. Itachi knew well that they were in no position to take on another mouth to feed. Since the all too recent "Third coming of Christ" Itachi and Kisame's organization had one by on been wiped out. With only Kisame and himself left, life in the wastes was difficult, even for survivalists like themselves.

The complicated part was that the worlds super powers passed a world law of antiwar, that made it illegal for anyone, except peace keeping authority, to carry fire arms. Any police officer that saw a civilian was given the authority to shoot to kill.

For their personal defense, civilians were permitted to carry wooden swords, or Bokuto . Many good things came from this right. Obesity became almost extinct, people ate better, they became more self aware, many schools of swordplay were developed during this period. Crime was at an all time low since the victims of violence were now capable and permitted to defend themselves.

But for unknown reasons, an unnamed third world country destroyed every major city with a newly developed secret weapon. Reducing seventy-five percent of the earths land mass into ash and ruin waste land, with many places still burning a whole generation later.

So the predicament now is that there is a lot of uninhabitable land, with a lot of skilled bandits, and relatively few settlements that have found safety and security. It was blatantly obvious that the two ex-criminals were not in any predicament that allowed for them to adopt a rat, much less a human. But Itachi recognized the look in the girls eyes. Only himself and two others had eyes like that. If he could raise her properly, then they would have a very powerful ally indeed... Such an ally might even give them some direction, instead of aimlessly wandering the wastes...

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This is the first chapter of a story that I was writing for my own amusement while at work. The concept of arming civilians with Bokuto (westeriners call the Boken, which is gramatically incorrect as bostick and kensword/blade, I belive bokuto means wooden sword rather than stick blade. a grammer thing...) came from my teacher who belives that this would be a great thing. I too belive it to be good, and think I, myself, would love it (suddenly all our sword training ammounts to something!) but I suspect that there is a downside to this...

Post your ideas in the comments/reviews section, I would love to hear from others on this point!


	2. Chapter 2: Riko

Wasteland

Chapter 002: Riko

Itachi rose from his nightly meditation and noticing that the young girl wasn't present, he called out to his companion, "Wheres Riko?"

"The six foot tall Kisami glance up, not noticing that Itachi's four hour meditation was over.

"Ah! She's off on her early morning training as usual..." he replied. Itachi got up and left without another word.

It had been three years since the two ex-members of a criminal organization had found the young girl, and, as he promised, he trained her in the Gyokko-ryu's method of Dakentaijutsu. She had been a quick learner. Because of this, Itachi named her Riko. He had taught her just about everything he knew of the art, she just had to practice it. Finally, he found Riko. She was strataling a large tree and doing sit-ups. About fifteen feet below her was a large puddle of sweat. After a moment of watching her, Itachi deliberately stepped on a small twig, a sound that seemed deafening in the heavy silence that had once been Hiroshima.

Having noticed her master, Riko climbed down from the tree and carefully stepped over her puddle. Racing to her master, she bowed and greeted him good morning.

"Busy? So early in the morning?" He said, it wasn't a question, but an observation. She was usually out and about early in the morning.

"Yes sensei, I wished to beat my record before we left this morning!" She exclaimed cheerfully. Itachi was always good to her. He learned his lesson long ago about compassion.

"Come, let us get water."

"sensei?" Riko asked. Itachi turned his dark, all knowing eyes to her. "Iv been stuck at five hundred and twenty three sit-ups for two week's. I feel that I'm at my limit..." She stared down at her feet, dangling in the river. After a moment in silence, Itachi spoke.

Human progress in budo is like climbing a series of steep steps..." he explained. "As the mind and body grow together, you move continuously onward and upward, one step at a time. Until the day you die, this process is endless because no body is perfect, but you can always become a little bit better if you keep at it. You can't seem to get over this step, which means that your progression has slowed down. This is natural since you've learned so much, there is less to learn, and it takes longer to learn these things. Especially when the new information contradicts what you've all ready learned." he explained.

"After all this time, he's still so far away..." She thought, missing the point of the lesson completely. Itachi knew this.

"Some day you'll develop a technique that will accelerate your learning again," he explained.

"Can't you teach it to me now?" Riko begged.

"No, your body needs to learn it, its not a technique of intellect. It's more subtle than mere Chakra control..."

Suddenly out of the ash around them burst several bladed chains that wrapped themselves around Itachi. Riko stepped back in time to parry a clawed gauntlet aimed at her head. The gauntlet shattered in a shower of metal shards and there stood an ash covered ninja clutching his bleeding arm, eyes wide , staring at her in disbelief.

"What the hell!" he gasped in amazement, Riko grinned.

On Itachi's side of things another ninja rose from the river, his gauntlet was attached to the chain that was wrapped around Itachi. The other side of the chain used to be attached to the other ninja's gauntlet which was destroyed a second ago.

"Uchiha Itachi, you will join our ranks!" The ninja exclaimed. Itachi relaxed his body and bowed his head.

"You don't even know why you want me..." He suddenly gripped the chain, giving it a sudden whip, which looped it around his assailants wrist, locking in place because of the gauntlet. He then stomped down on the chain, dislocating the ninja's shoulder, breaking his wrist and dragging him closer in one move. Itachi caught the assassin by the throat and held him close.

"It's because of my eyes..." and with that, he opened them...

Riko's assailant had drawn a ninja-to in his left hand and cut vertically at Riko, who had parried the blade with both hands. The ninja had finally realized her secret, "She's got Shuko!" he gasped, but it was too late. His sword shattered as he leaped back and several deep gashes appeared on the inside of his wrist.

"Now both of your arms are useless!" Riko grinned, the enemy growled and leaped into the air, spinning at the height of his jump and brought his foot down in an overly stylized vertical kick, which Riko evaded easily by side stepping. But in the dust brought up from the kick, the ninja diapered. Suddenly a scream of madness erupted from Itachi's direction. Looking up she saw him release an unconscious form into the river. "Sensei! Are you all right?!" she pleaded, noting blood dripping from her teachers hand.

"I'm fine for now... It seems that theres someone who wants my skills... If they know of my skills, then these two were just a test..."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So this is the second chapter to my Wastland story. It may seem rushed, but theres two things to consider here; 1) I origionally wrote this for my own amusement, I sometimes find it more enjoyable to write rather than to make a perfect story... sounds bad I know, but when I first began to start writing I had no intention in letting anyone else read my crap, but on one of my first stories, some people actually liked my crap. It was my first review that motivated me to keep trying and so here I am, on my fifth or sixth story (that was put online) and I think this is my second story that I even thought of finishing for you guys. Off on a tangent I see; 2) I'll probably go back to correct/edit/ spiffy up this story if it starts comming together like I plan... Have a good day guys and (hopefully) enjoy! bed . . .


End file.
